2166                                          LAWS OF MARYLAND                                      Ch. 619

CHAPTER 619

(Senate Bill 967)

AN ACT concerning

Natural Resources - Use of Lead Shot Ammunition

FOR the purpose of removing adding an exception to the
prohibition on the State, the Secretary of Natural
Resources, or any agency of the Department of Natural
Resources from adopting, enforcing, or requesting the
enforcement of any ban on the use or possession of lead shot
ammunition while hunting wild waterfowl.

BY repealing

BY repealing and reenacting, with amendments,

Article - Natural Resources

Section 10-604(e)

Annotated Code of Maryland

(1983 Replacement Volume and 1985 Supplement)

Preamble

WHEREAS, In the January 6, 1986, Federal Register (51 FR
409), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States
Department of the Interior, proposed to prohibit the use of lead
shot in certain areas to minimize the threat of lead poisoning to
waterfowl and bald eagles; and

WHEREAS, The attention of the Fish and Wildlife Service was
focused on the bald eagle poisoning problem in September, 1985
through a Federal Court decision in California that caused the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service to require the use of
nontoxic shot for waterfowl hunting in certain zones where eagles
are known to have been affected by lead poisoning; and

WHEREAS, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, by
letter dated January 6, 1986, transmitted the proposed rule to
the State of Maryland; and

WHEREAS, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service, as
announced in the Federal Register of January 6, 1986, does not
intend to open the 1986-87 waterfowl hunting seasons in the areas
proposed unless the states involved approve the proposed
prohibitions against lead shot; and

WHEREAS, The action of the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service results from its authority under the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act of 1918; and